Meeting Notes 2021 10 12

These are the notes from the The 649th Meeting of Noisebridge.

• Live notes
  • https://pad.riseup.net/p/nbmeeting
• Virtual Meeting (jitsi mic/cam off by default)
  • https://jitsi.noisebridge.io/hackitorium#config.startWithAudioMuted=true&config.startWithVideoMuted=true&userInfo.displayName=%22n00b%22

Date: 2021_10_12

Previous Meeting

Next Meeting

Note-taker: sophia

Moderator: tj

• One or two bullet points of high-level meeting summary.

Meeting Summary

FIXME FILL OUT AT END OF MEETING AND SEND TO MAILING LIST TLDR what happened at the meeting:

• Fundraising Update
• Announcements:
• Finances:
• New members:
• New philanthropists:
• Consensus Items:
• Discussion Items:

Introductions

• tj: likes robotics
• relay: likes FOSS, likes noisebridge, likes excellence
• ryan: into robotics and manufacturing stuff. working on the gate
• ronald: like programming, working on cool interactive apps e.g. games/music stuff. likes having fun
• wolf: (really a sheep) dabbles in everything. here to hang out
• alex: new to nb. likes coding and getting into woodworking
• ritvik: into woodworking, coding, sewing
• sophia: likes taking notes
• alec: longtime nb guy, gamebridge guy, vr guy. lots of guy
• carl: programmer, flaschentaschen hacker, mobile app dev. works for internet archive
• james: works on infrastructure
• evil dan: been doing a neuroscience meetup for many years before covid. I know most of you here and we have not heard from audry.
• audrey: Hi (in school?)from argentina. here in sf for 13 years. studying programming: js/html/rb.
• zach: been coming for a while, since 2010, havent been in recent years due to wheelchair access issues to the (old) space. excited to come to space when it's safe (covid). interested in teaching laptop repair classes/arduino classes remotely, plz contact if anyone interested. Also want to encourage a different facilitator each week (rotating), especially hearing from women or non-binary folks.
• alex/his girlfriend are interested in PCB design
• nobody: in and out checking jitsi is up

Short announcements and events

60-second description per item in bulletpoint.

• 5MoF is next thursday. because its the third thursday. anything you're working on is welcome. come to the 'bridge at 8pm, come to watch.
• we need a grill for brewing, or some other mechanism to heat up a pot. there's interested if it's a barbecue. the grill has been retaken by X. perhaps we could talk to X about getting it back. perhaps Noisebridge should get its own bridge. Grill is prioritized for Amatuer Radio, is there a brewing connection?
• ryan and tj are starting an AI class. starting a readme with ideas.

• wolf - i hear circuit hacking monday has started back up.
• tj - CHM didn't happen monday, so probably not. anyone who wants to teach this would be much appreciated.

• ryan - working on CNC machine project. Seeing if we can get a license to do machining, maybe going to do a class. on slack go to #fabrication and ill respond. want to learn blades/mills or CNC programming hit me up.

• X is interested in hosting Circuit Hacking Monday's and/or Wednesday, looking for other co-facilitators to make a recurring weekly.

Zach: to anyone teaching, please consider a remote option for classes for those of us who are high risk for Covid but interested in being involved in the community.

Relay: We can do that with our Jitsi server setup we have now.

LXPK: Discord server invite: https://discord.gg/FwJvQN66

• ronald - new mobile multiplayer game, bloodblaze.io. shoot people in the face.

• zach - wanna do an interest check now before i formally offer a class, don't want to teach a 1-2 person class. aiming for 5 people to attend. if you can get a few people on board would be happy to teach.

Excellence

Our One Rule is to Be Excellent to Each Other.

relay: being excellent means trying to be the best you can while you're here. do unto others as you want them to do unto you. try to help the space be excellent as well, encourage good behavior.

tj: examples of excellence. wants to commend sophia for starting a new noisebridge project.

(What does that mean? How does the Anti-Harassment Policy fit into this? Are we SURE we know what being Excellent is? This is an important and fundamental conversation at Noisebridge, so let's give it like 120 seconds.)

Participation

Everyone at Noisebridge is a participant at Noisebridge.

(What does that mean? How do you get a door key? Access to Slack, Discuss, etc?) sophia says this and no one writes it down. see previous meeting notes

Philanthropists

A Philanthropist at Noisebridge has earned enough trust from the community to open and close the space.

tj: special level of noisebridger which means you are a custodian. we trust you with the space. all philanthropists know how to open and close the space. they can also get keys. more access but more responsibility.

we have a new applicant, ronald, sponsored by tj. ronald: new to sf, when i first came here i was just using the coffee shops as the place to use the computer, which felt kind of communal even though no one talked. then i heard about nb, and i was really excited to check it out before i even came because it was a group of people that liked coding. been coming here almost everyday since i discovered it and it's great. excited to work on arduino projects. mainly just been using the computers to work on personal projects. tj: ronald's set up a lot of the workstations here, has opened and closed often for noisebridge already. would be great for him to be a philanthropist and it can be more official with opening and closing. sophia: what does excellence mean to you and what are you gonna do as a philanthropist. ronald: leaving the place better than how you found it, treating everyone with respect, cleaning up after yourself, doing good for others. as a philanthropist, im probably gonna stay a little later and come a little earlier on the computer. the same things as before, welcome people to the space. the same things, and maybe more things. tj: any more questions relay: how does our lack of distinct hierarchy benefit nb ronald: makes me feel more personally responsible. nobody works here, so have to take matters into my own hands in terms of maintaining it and making sure it stays clean. that can mean picking up someone else's trash because no one else is gonna do it. tj: there's usually a sliding scale donation based on ability. usually $40-80, but you can contribute in other ways, which are to be clear equally or more valuable. let our treasurer know and i will sign this.

Membership Binder

Membership in Noisebridge entails community Trust in Consensus.

tj: big m members are people who, in addition to phil privileges, can block a consensus item. it takes 4 weeks to apply and 2 sponsors usually, so more involved. members are also required to sponsor new members and new philanthropists. members also elect the board.

(What does that mean? What do we expect from Members? How do you become a Member? etc)

Financial Report

Anarchist societies under a capitalist state need money to survive and thrive, yo.

tj: we sold off about 3/4 of a bitcoin for $40k. otherwise no change.

• Funds in bank:
• Noisetor (See the bulletpoints at the bottom of http://noisetor.net/finances/#summary):
• Any other details by those participating in handling our financials
• The latest financial reports from the treasurer are available at https://noisebridge.net/wiki/Finances

Fundraising Update

How's it all going

no change.

classes are good ideas for fundraising. we have free code camp on fridays and the blender class.

Consensus

Consensus is how the Noisebridge Membership may change how Noisebridge works.

(How does Consensus work? What types of things are good for formal Consensus? What is small-c consensus? What is a "block"?)

no consensus items. last week we had mask conesnsus item but that was blocked.

Proposals from last week

(Add any items which are consensed upon or someone has raised a principle objection for to the Consensus Items History page.)

Proposals for next week

(Add any new items for consensus to the Current Consensus Items page.)

Discussion

Discussion Item 1 remote learning

zach: would love to take the blender class, but is only being offerend in person. want there to be more clarity about remote classes, having more clarity on the website For what is being offered remotely and what is not, and if there's any flexibility to help with making more remote classes, i.e., offering a donation or something relay: i could ask him to spin that up sophia: talk to rayyan. tj: i agree, discuss posts talk to slack. alex: zach can go first zach: it may be possible to track down teachers through various apps, but it can be a high bar for folks that are new or trying to learn, I think it would be better to have the onus be on teachers advertising a class, to include with the accessibility is, instead of new students trying to learn and navigate apps. alex: we've done a few efforts to try to make our wiki more accessible and include more information on this. we could write a guideline on why it's important to do this, because a lot of people have never done this before. if we could make this a small c recommendation. have people advertising it say whether it is or isn't accessible and if it isn't suggest they follow best practices. sophia: rayyan reads none of this, so we still have to talk to him in person. tj: we can talk to rayyan and paul who does code camp, we're gonna have to zach: the class was advertised on discuss and i responded and he didn't respond, which is annoying. so i didnt just come to complain {a bunch of discussion that wasn't caught} tj: are next steps clear zach? follow up is happening in person. zach: not asking for a one-off. i've been here for a while and find it difficult to find, so for new people even more difficult. tj: we don't have access to the meetup (??) though we can modify the wiki. alexpk: i'd be happy to help modify the wiki tj: we'll follow up with rayyan in person and on chat and we'll have more clarity/documentation. zach: happy to hear it and hopefully take this class.

zach: proposed consensus item to require accessibility, but this was blocked. now that things are not all online, trying to get accessibility back.

Discussion Item 2 protocol for discussing members activities without taking notes

zach: i was multitasking during that meeting because i clearly missed something. can't remember a time where a member was discussed a member without them being present (aside from membership discussion). only other time is when someone is being discussed for membership. audrey: maybe you can summarize the most important things. tj: there was a discussion of various things in the space and the background of the person who was in the sapce. lot of past failings and lots of conflict rose to the surface. relay: we don't always report everything that's said in the space. sometimes people say things but we don't always say anything. hard to say things like this without context. bigger problem was that we used the time to discuss it at all. zach: wanted to DR. don't think it was a little thing or a small mention. long, heated discussion. never seen that before where it wasn't recorded. people wanted to know what happened. we should have some clear rules about this kind of thing. not excellent in my opinion. I just think there should be clear rules if we're gonna have a closed session. alex: there is precedent for this kind of discretion. any kind of real estate deal could be sniped or whatever. we had a policy during the lease negotiations of not entering discussions into the notes. we've done it before when there's an opsec thing but it is recorded in some way that's available. there have been small examples of this in the past. not a problem as long as something in the notes is there. they end up being on the internet for basically forever. it's fine to want to say something off the record. if it's just amongst us as opposed to on the internet forever. james: wanted to mention that there's still not a precedent for doing this. if we want to take this outside the meeting thats fine also. it shows respect and consideration to take the conversation somewhere that's not in the meeting. hope that we do not continue on this path. sophia: says soemthing and not recorded james: some people have been discussing it but not all of us. we are learning about the previous discussion right now. sophia: says something and not recorded evil dan: really interesting and healthy to talk about talking about talking about. not a big fan of formality and technicalities and perceived magical power structures. there's no perfect blameless way to talk through crazy making conflict. good if we're pretty relaxed and looking at doing better and getting different perspectives and concerns. biggest concern is when things are put in the notes that aren't accurate. i don't put things in the notes. appreciate people who cna't try. there is a history of terrible things happening when people put things in the notes that aren't true. that gets called out and noticed. there was a secretary who did that and they haven't been back at nb since. would err on the side of caution. would err towards putting less in the notes, not too much. if people wanna know what was said at the meeting, we can have a list of people who wanna be able to talk about it sometime. talk about what's happening by invitation. appreciate that i'm able to have relatively cordial conversations with everyone here. nb is best when people get along, but this is really hard. james if you're curious you can talk. sophia: says something andnot recorded evil dan: a proxy/a communication from X. he included the links and stuff at the bottom. tj: thanks, didnt realize that was X. i would be of the party that we don't want to air specifics at all. don't want to drag someone's name through the dirt online. we want to let others know and warn others in the future. the person we wanted to let know about this knows about it, that's the important part. zach: we had a new person present last week that was very put off by this I thnk, so thats an issue. we're off the path i hoped with this item. i wasn't here to discuss X or that conflict. how do we disclose our rules as a community about how we handle closed discussions about members. if someone's violent or sexually aggresive, you don't want that in the meeting notes, protect people's safety, something like that. it was pretty off-putting to see last week. put off by the 0-100 vibe. we should have a clear process. tj: noted. if you have specifics on what you dont want being said in meetings, put it in discuss. zach: not what im saying at all. trying to get us to formulate clear rules for closed sessions. this was kind of muddled. alex: two different policy questions. one is how to handle these types of interpersonal things. another is how/whether to note them in meetings. we had various initiatives around dispute resolution. couple people contacted me about last week for stuff to learn from zach- asked facilitator to say "Direct Response" so dialogue isnt a back-and-forth between TJ and zach, when other hands are raised. tj: we have #bravespace on slack for talking about this kind of thing. or james has a similar thing on discuss (logged in users). apparently logged in users crossposts to general. One option is logged-in users on Discuss which x-posts to Hackitorium (Discord) and General Discussion (Slack). or, Bravespace on discuss to Bravespace Slack with no discord channel yet. james: main thing about logged-in is that it doesn't show up on search and stuff like this. tj: we can add a bravespace section on discuss maybe zach: thanks everyone for discussing this - It can be a hot button topic, but thinks we all did a good job talking about it today. it is already on discuss as an opt-in group https://discuss.noisebridge.info/g/Bravespace/

It x-posts to Slack bravespace channel. no discord channel assigned yet...

Where should either of these x-post? (fill in suggestions below please) I'm having to do a concerning amount of corrections here, which is difficult with my disabilities. concerned at how my words are being represented in the notes - Zach how do you want your words represented zach. it is very difficult to type everything being said. i am trying to add things but my hands get tired. i don't think your words are misrepersented any more than everyone else's are - sophia (notetaker) zach - When I mentioned things about inclusion, or proper facilitation, they have been excluded from the notes. It's not the brevity of the notes that's the concern, it's what's being censored from them i consider facilitation stuff erratum of the meeting format and don't note them like i don't note people asking for stack Please take notes about it, if it's happening in the meeting. It's important that what I say is recorded, or even just a note saying youre not recording that would be helpful. Similarly, when I said at the beginning of the meeting that we should have rotating facilitator's, I think that's another thing that should not be removed from the notes. - Zach do you want to take notes

Relay's Paralell notes:

Zach: I was confused during that meeting and never been to a meeting where a member was discussed without them being present exept for membership. Ive never seen that before and waant to know the reason behind this. Audry: summarize this please Sophie: there was alot of thing that people wanted to talk about the person that left all of the stuff in the space and the past feelings and conflict rose to the surface at the meeting. liz took notes TJ:I was the one there. i didn't take notes regarding that we would be airing dirty laundry. This was an issue that this came out of broader personal conflicts discussing these in the meeting notes is pointless. I don't have personal feelings on this but there James: a closed session should have been in the notes LXBK: checked the notes and asked Liz. THere is a precident for this. real estate negotiations and police dissusions are part of the president for this it does not need to be in the notes and it was available and I was able to find it from liz. Notes are a permenant record so what is in them matters so keeping things off the record can be ok rather than on the internet all the time James: It is worth noting that there is no prescident. it should be somewhere in the notes that an offline discussion occurred if it is in the meeting. Sophie: (forgot to write that part because I was checking noise outside) Evil Dan: percieved magical structures of meetins are tough. THere is no perfect blameless way to deal with this regarding conflict. It is not good with things that aren't accurate. There is a history of terrible things put in the notes that are not true and when people change things after the fact. There was a secretary that did that. They were banned last time that happened. That is why we err on the side of caution. It would be good to have a list of participants that want to talk about it offline if necessary. SOphie: if people want to know what happened DM me Dan: a communication from X: they dropped notes

Up & Down (5 minutes) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_pchgwkn1I Back Ground (1 Minute) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7qzFyEQ5rs Outside In (7 minutes) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F35pxiOP1Uk

James: please let us have some guidelines on when we have meetings without notes taken going forward. LXBK: sophia mentioned that it is uncertain on how to deal with these things in the future to the extent that they can be at or in the meeting. We have had in the past some meeting initiatives and this should be something that we should learn from in the future. We can get better at this. Where is the best channel for this to be discussed?

TJ: we have one on discuss and we do have one. It seems to cross post to general we need to address that. We also have one for slack as well. We might want to get rid of the cross post to general. Sophia: I'd prefer if we can cross post to brave space. LXPK: so it's not posted to everyone right? James: we want to have it better. We'd like to have a means to connect but not be shared to everyone. Zack: thank you everyone for discussing this.

logged in is just to avoid public listing in search engines

Discussion Item 3 space stuff. space plans

tj: we have a few minutes/i can wrap this up in a few minutes. we can move the shelves to near the stairs? in terms of the purge relay: would anyone have any objection to moving the laser cutter where the stairs are? tj: broccolli has been talking about moving the laser cutter up front or out back for ventilation. no one would stop you from moving the laser cutter. there is the objection of potential noise. {stuff not recorded from relay and sophia} tj: ideally we want to vent it outside or up. if no one has anything else to add, then we can end the meeting. nothing to add so meeting adjourned.

Walk through of most of space from yesterday, watch at leisure if/when interested.

Emphasis on safety and plausible state of transition

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F35pxiOP1Uk (7 min)
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_pchgwkn1I (5 min)
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7qzFyEQ5rs (1 min)

Previous 5 minute walk thru recorded for August 2021

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdOnyknXvg0

Discussion idears, which changes do we like and still in progress?

Blank Slate 272 Capp Street 360

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7uP77GRvHc

End of Meeting

Note taker posts the notes

• Clean and tidy the meeting notes including removing all these really verbose instructions.
• Fill out the short summary at the top listing just announcements, consensus items, discussion topics, and names of new members and philanthropists.
• Copy paste the notes to the next meeting page. (They will become Last meeting at midnight.)
• Email the meeting summary to Noisebridge Discuss and Noisebridge Announce lists.
• CC on the email treasurer@noisebridge.net and secretary@noisebridge.net if there are new members and philanthropists.
• Edit the Current Consensus Items if anything is proposed for consensus next week.
• Edit the Consensus Items History if anything was reached consensus or failed to reach consensus this week.

Fun things to do after

• Reprise of the Hackernationale. [This is anarchy - we do what the wiki says!]
• PGP Key Signing could happen now (if it doesn't happen before any given Meeting). Ask others around the space or check the list to see who wants in on the action.